Build for a Plex server

[ED209]

Hello All,

So, I have been playing around with Plex on my current system (I7 9700k\32GB of ram\4070Ti) and while it all works on here I do not really want to me leaving the system on all the time.

I was thinking of building a PC purely to be a Plex server and wondered if anyone had any suggestions.

Devices that would be streaming to would be a tablet, 3 x phones and 2 x LG TVs.

Any suggestions\tips would be great.

no real budget but I don't want to spend more than needed

 

[ED209]

What about if you upgraded the i7-9700K and took the 4070 Ti out, for your gaming PC and then used the i7-9700K (with integrated graphics) for your Plex server? 8th/9th systems usually have pretty good idle power (especially when using the IGP) and depending on exactly what you're doing with your server, the UHD 630 can be pretty effective.

Could do, the PC is currently an ATX system.

Only thing it would be doing is being a plex server and possibly used for downloading content for the server.

 

[ED209]

I'm not really up with the different aspects of Plex enough to say e.g. "you'll hit the limit IF you do x", but there are quite a few videos on YouTube that might help, e.g.:

i5-10400 #PLEX UHD 630 TRANSCODE TEST #4K #INTEL #CPU #GEEKSHHH

*If you appreciate these transcode test and would like to support me in the continuation of future test on new hardware then please consider giving me a 'SUP...

www.youtube.com

I suppose you could just take the 4070 Ti out and see if it can still cope.

The i7-9700K is still a decent gaming CPU, but a newer CPU like a 14700 or 7800X3D are much faster.

Thanks, I will take a look.

 

[ED209]

i also run timers on my system, so at 2am it went off and 1pm it would come back on. any other time we are working or sleeping

Timers would be a good idea.

My wife can be up quite late but will set it to a time where she is asleep.

 

[ED209]

That’s how it starts…

For multiple streams a later generation CPU or a CPU (just about anything DDR3 or above) and something like an Arc a310.

An Arc a310, Xeon e3-1220l v3 and C222 board with 8-16gb of ECC memory should cover for how, start and it.

Cheers, Having a look it seems that quicksync is meant to be a good option which is in the newer Intel processors.

I do have a spare AMD 2200G sitting on the side when I upgraded my son to a 3600 a few years ago

I had a quick look at HP micro servers but they all seem to come with either an AMD Trion or a Celeron

 

[ED209]

And… ya off.

EPYC 73F3 256gb of RDIMMs ,Intel Flex 170 and optane SSD’s, lots and lots of optane drives!

You’re welcome!

Is this 1 of them can of worms you open and wish you didn't? lol

See here for a list of capabilities. Nvidia GPU Encode Decode

I use a quadro P2000, though had a P1000 before (only supports 3 streams). I don't encode to AV1 so not an issue so far.
Intel iGPU is well rated through I'd look for 10th Gen or better if relying solely on the CPU though AV1 is only on Intel 13th Gen or Nvidia 4xxx .

I'd aim to have native to the TV's if possible, then transcoding to a phone for bandwidth saving is less of an issue as small screen is less noticable.

Cheers, ill take a look. Currently the content is only 1080P but I do have some 4K movies on an external HDD (this is what I used to do before hand)

Curve ball, but why don't you want to leave PC on all the time? With monitor off and only the PC going it'll be around 50-100 watts idle. If it's noise then maybe look at replacing fans/case/psu.. just a thought.

If it's the HDD is the noisy thing put that in a NAS. Most NAS will also run Plex, but not sure about the performance of those. How much storage to you use/need?

I could but as its my gaming PC I assumed it would use a lot of electric due to the hardware in it.

As this PC is used for gaming\browsing etc I was unsure how Plex running on it with people streaming would impact this.

Was looking at getting something low powered without a dedicated gpu to lower the running costs.

 

[ED209]

This is currently what my PC is using after the PC has booted up and just sitting on the desktop. This is without me doing anything to the system